Industry at a glance ///

Recent hurricane activity in the US Gulf of Mexico resulted in a sharp decrease in US oil production. Damage caused by hurricanes Gustav and Ike caused production in offshore platforms to remain shut in. Decreased GOM production was seen in several states, with the largest month-to-month production drops in Louisiana, 62%, and Texas, 16%. As the platforms begin to come back online, US production should return to normal. Crude futures continued to fall in September and early October. Due to continually declining oil prices, OPEC announced at its emergency meeting in October that production would be cut by 1.5 million bpd beginning in November. In September, global oil supply fell by 1.27 million bpd to 84.96 million bpd mainly on outages in the US due to the hurricanes. September OPEC crude production fell by 530,000 bpd.